


The Relative Merits of the Scroll and the Codex

by allheadybooks



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:31:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allheadybooks/pseuds/allheadybooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They do the interview in the office, at least, instead of the interrogation room.  Lewis steps out to put the kettle on, and comes back with two cups of hot, sweet tea.</p><p>"Now," Lewis says.  "Start from the beginning."</p><p> </p><p>(Set post-season 6.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Relative Merits of the Scroll and the Codex

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inabathrobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe/gifts).



"Not bloody likely," Lewis shouts, over Innocent's noise of protest. "Ma'am, if you'll pardon me saying so, the day I hand my investigation over to a less-experienced officer on the say so of a suspect's bloody _mother_ \--"

"Robbie," Innocent says. She doesn't like it any more than he does, James can tell: her arms are folded over her chest and she's looking just to the left of them, past Robbie's head and off towards a bookcase on the far side of the room.

"What next," Lewis says, "permission slips for interrogations? Hell and damn, Jean, this is unprofessional and you know it."

"Robbie," Innocent says. "Robbie, she's backed us into a corner. Hear me out," she says, holding up a hand in the face of his protest. "Unprofessional, yes. I do know that, I'm not stupid. But we don't have a choice here. DI Peterson is taking the case. Check this one off your list and move on to the next homicide in need of police investigation. Lord knows we're hardly short of them. Am I clear?"

"Crystal," Lewis says, then turns on his heel and leaves the office. Innocent's shoulders drop. She looks sympathetic, and exhausted.

"I didn't want to do it like that," she says to James.

"I know, ma'am," he says. "I'm sure he'll get over it. I'd better--"

"Yes, yes," she says, waving him off. "Go and keep him out of trouble. This can't be easy on him, I do know that."

"Yes ma'am," James says, and gets out of there. The air is cooler in the corridor, or something; anyway, he breathes a little easier. 

"Lewis?" James leans in through their office doorway, but Lewis isn't there. His lunch is still on his desk--a sandwich wrapped in brown paper and done up with parcel tape. Turkey with cheddar, mustard, and chutney--James knows, James ordered it. 

He's on his way out of the building to see if Lewis is hiding in the carpark when he hears them talking, Lewis and Hobson, stood out on the step. She's smoking a cigarette. He can smell it from where he's stopped just inside the doors, and it makes him want one.

" . . . to forget," Lewis is saying. "She practically called me senile in front of a room full of witnesses, and her written complaint was polite, of course, legal this and legal that, but strip off the bells and whistles and that's what it said too. It was--humiliating."

"Robbie," Hobson says, "you know better than this."

"I know," Lewis says, and sighs. "I'm sorry, Laura. I drew the line, I ought to stick to it."

"Give it time," she says. They're both silent for a moment, and then James realizes where he is--hanging behind the door, stock still like an idiot--and heads off for the east entrance, cigarette in his hand before he even knows it's there.

 

"Come and sort this out," Lewis says an hour later, frowning at the computer. "It's lost the screen again."

"Coming," James says, and puts his sandwich down.

"I've typed in that form more bloody times," Lewis says. He's cross, and he smells like mustard and Tiger Balm.

"Here," James says, and reopens the page. "Stop clicking outside the frame, it thinks you want to go to the desktop."

"What would I want to go to the desktop for?" Lewis grumbles, but he looks pleased. James looks at the screen: an incident report, dated twelve hours ago; intruder heard, nothing stolen or disturbed, Mrs. Pym gave statement; Detective Inspector R. Lewis presiding.

"Have you been coppering without me, sir?" James asks. Lewis snorts.

"Old girl down the road," he says, and rolls his eyes. James leans back, away from Lewis and the computer, and leans his hip casually against the desk. "Thought she heard a burglar and called me first off. You didn't miss a thing, trust me."

"Filing paperwork on your lunch hour because your elderly neighbor heard a noise in the middle of the night?" James raises his eyebrows. "Thoughtful of you."

"Lay off," Lewis says. "It's been a long week." He frowns. 

"I'm sorry," James says. He's not sure what to say next. 

"No," Lewis says, "no, I'm sorry. I didn't sleep well. Mrs. Pym's invisible burglar." He rubs at his jaw with the fingertips of his right hand. "We'll take a new case, I suppose. Work'll do me some good."

"Right," James says.

 

In an alleyway back of a nightclub in the city centre, they find a young white woman face-down in a bag of rubbish next to a skip. Neck black and blue. No meaningful signs of the killer--it's rained in the night, the street is wet, the body is wet, the stink of rotting food is on everything. Lewis's face is pinched.

When the pathologists are finally cleared to roll her over, her stringy red hair falls away from her face and suddenly he knows her. He wishes he were wrong. He has to cover his mouth, standing there and looking at her.

"Hathaway?" Lewis says. "Everything all right?"

"She--" he starts, and then has to swallow very sharply. "I knew her. Cambridge."

"Bugger," Lewis says, looking grim. "Come on, then."

Lewis makes James stand by the car while he says something to Hobson, then the PC who called in the body. James thinks about smoking a cigarette, but doesn't. His breathing is perfectly even. It's like he's floating, a bit.

"James," Lewis says. "Tell me her name."

"Samantha Freeman," James says. "About my age. A bit older, maybe. From Berkshire somewhere."

"And she was at school with you?" Lewis asks.

"Yes. Not for long. She left in our second year."

"Transferred out?"

James sighs. "It's a long story," he says. "And doesn't matter anyway. It was fifteen years ago."

"Did you know what she was doing now?" Lewis asks. "Keep in touch at all?"

"No," James says. "No. I don't know what she was doing."

"Well, we'll find out," Lewis says. Then his face goes hard and focused. "Listen up, lad," he says. "I won't have another Will McEwan. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," James says.

"Good," Lewis says. "You will tell me everything. And I mean everything. I'm not in the mood for games."

 

They do the interview in the office, at least, instead of the interrogation room. Lewis steps out to put the kettle on, and comes back with two cups of hot, sweet tea.

"Now," Lewis says. "Start from the beginning."

James takes a breath. "When I was nineteen," he says, "I knew a girl called Caroline Howsham. We moved in the same circles, as they say, but she was considerably posher than any of the rest of us. Well, they were all posh--except me, but I'd learned the manners."

"You passed," Lewis says.

"Yes," James says. "I met Samantha Freeman at one of Caroline's horrible little dinner parties. She was there with her friend, who was a sort of hanger-on with political aspirations. Sam was reading linguistics. We had a passionate drunken argument about Linear B, I think."

"Linear what?" Lewis says.

"It's an early form of Ancient Greek," James says. "Anyway, after the party we kept up a correspondence. She used to write me letters about what she was studying, or her life, and I would write back and roll the paper into little scrolls and leave them in her letterbox. It was a joke, you see--we'd had another argument about the relative merits of the scroll and the codex."

"So you were pen friends," Lewis says.

"She told me her secrets," James says. "I told her mine."

"I have to ask," Lewis says.

"Yes," James says. "Of course. It's all old news now anyway. She'd had a bad split with her boyfriend, who was cruel to her in the petty way that students are. Geoff something, although he didn't sound so awful that he would have tracked her down fifteen years later and killed her."

"Still," Lewis says.

"Geoff, I'm almost certain. He was at Girton."

Lewis takes a few notes. James watches his hands, his face. 

"After a bit," James says, "we started writing our letters in Greek. It's a good language for secrets."

"James," Lewis says. "Were you involved, in any way?"

"We hardly saw each other--only once in a while, socially," James says. "And no. I was in love with Caroline's brother."

"Ah," Lewis says.

"Robbie," James says. "I was--unhappy, as a boy. I hated myself."

Lewis nods.

"Sam knew. She was kind. She used to see Tom all the time--they were at the same college--and she would send me little notes about stupid things he'd said in recitation, teasing me for fancying him. I think I liked that it could be funny to someone. It certainly wasn't funny to me."

Lewis puts his hand out. For a moment, James thinks he's about to touch his arm, but then he veers left and pushes James's mug a little closer. "Go on, lad," he says, so James takes a sip. It's cooled now, but still good. Strong.

"That's it," James says. "She left school for some kind of family emergency. Her mum, I think. It was sudden, I only heard about it later from a friend of a friend. I got an address and wrote her, but she never answered. We never saw each other again."

"Do you still have the letters, then?" Lewis asks.

"Well." James looks down into his tea. "It's been so long. And there was so much in them about--well. I didn't take them with me to seminary."

"All right," Lewis says. His voice is gentle. "That's enough for now."

 

After that, Lewis keeps a close leash on him--no orders are given, but it's clear he want James in sight at all times. Once, he steps out for a moment without saying anything and comes back with two fresh mugs of tea. James drinks it, and it's perfect; he must have been cold, or thirsty.

"This isn't really your job, sir," James says. He's shooting for dry and detached but it comes out creaky.

"What isn't?" Lewis says, still looking at the computer screen.

"Comforting the bereaved."

"Don't be daft," Lewis says. 

"A cuppa and a shoulder to cry on? What next, a shock blanket?" James says. "Go ahead. I suit orange."

"James," Lewis says. He's been James every time since they found Sam, never Hathaway or Sergeant. Always in the soft voice Lewis uses on the phone with Lynn, or two pints in, when something reminds him of Val.

"Give me something to do," James says.

Lewis looks at James. It makes him feel naked, like Lewis can see more of James than he even knows himself. Then Lewis nods to himself, and clicks a couple of things on the computer, slowly and precisely types a few words. 

"All right," Lewis says. "Come on. We're going to see what PC Lockhart's turned up."

 

"Not much," Lockhart says. She's got a couple of PNC windows open on her computer: passport records, tax records, birth and death certificates. "Mother died of bone cancer in 1999, father emigrated shortly afterward. Australia. One brother, who was still in the father's custody at the time and went with him. No record of the deceased so much as visiting at any point since, so I'm guessing there's bad blood."

"Family emergency," Lewis says, and looks to James.

"Yes," Lockhart says, "that seems to be when she left Cambridge. She went on to University of Leeds after a year off and finished her education there. Then on to America for a PhD in palaeography at the University of Chicago. What's that?"

"The study of writing," James says. "Manuscripts, scribes, that sort of thing."

"Then what?" Lewis asks.

"That's just it," Lockhart says, "it's a perfectly normal paper trail until 2011. She gets her degree, lets her student visa expire, gives up her apartment, even buys a ticket to Heathrow but never boards the plane. No employment history, no publications. All her identification is expired by now."

"And nothing since then?" Lewis says.

"Sir," Lockhart says, "if I was just going on what I've got here, I would say she was dead two years ago."

"Jesus Christ," Lewis says. "It had to be an odd one, didn't it." He looks to James, his face a question, but James doesn't have the answer. He doesn't even remember her that well--her Greek more than anything, the way she always confused the optative with the subjunctive.

"She was bright," he says, finally. "She could have done it."

"But why?" Lewis asks.

"Well," Lockhart breaks in, "could be an immigration dodge--when your visa runs out, change your name and get false papers? It's been done here."

"Possible," James says. "Not likely. She had a PhD--she was white, middle-class, connected to an American university, she could have found something."

"Get away from someone?" Lewis says. "That Geoff--beginning of a pattern, maybe?" Then his phone rings, and he makes a face.

"Hobson?" James asks. Lewis nods. 

"I'll take this outside," he says. Lockhart gives James a look. He can't tell if she knows he knew Sam, or she knows about Lewis and Hobson, or both. 

When he comes back, Lewis has a cause of death: strangulation. They already knew that, but it's nice to have it confirmed. His voice is kind and he doesn't say more than he has to.

"Thank you, sir," James says.

"Don't thank me yet," Lewis says. "We still don't know who did it."

 

They spend the afternoon following up one lead after another, with very little to show for it. Lewis manages to get Samantha's father on the speakerphone, though it's midnight in Brisbane and he's not pleased to be disturbed. 

"Whatever trouble she's in, it's not my problem," Mr. Freeman says. "She should know better than to ask me for help."

"She's been killed," Lewis says, point-blank. 

"Oh," Mr. Freeman says. "Oh. How--I suppose I don't want to know. Why?"

"We were hoping you could tell us that," Lewis says.

"No. We hadn't spoken since her mother died. I'll have to tell Paul."

"We'll be speaking with him shortly, Mr. Freeman," Lewis says.

"I can tell you right now," Mr. Freeman says. "He hasn't seen her either. She left us, Inspector. She was dead to us a long time ago."

When the line goes dead, James catches Lewis's eye. He looks angry. "All right, sir?"

"To talk about his own daughter that way." Lewis hangs up the phone and makes a fist of his hand against the desk. "He should be ashamed of himself."

"Sir," James says. 

"Her mother dead and all," Lewis says. He takes a deep breath, holds it for a beat, and then lets it out slowly through his nose--perhaps something a grief counselor taught him to do, James thinks.

"Robbie," James says. Lewis looks over at him. "You're not him."

"Ay, well," Lewis says, and seems to shake it off.

The brother is not what they expect. "Oh, God," Paul says, "oh, shit, Sam. Sam. Really?"

"I'm sorry, lad," Lewis says. 

"But what was she doing in Oxford?" Paul asks. He sounds educated, a bit posh, but there's some outback in his accent, unmistakeably. "It's the middle of the semester."

Lewis looks over at James, quickly, and says in a slow voice, "Where was she meant to be, then?"

"Well, America," Paul says. "She had a sort of research fellowship--a three-year thing, I think, and she's only on year two--I had a note from her just the other day, complaining about her work."

"You were in contact with your sister? Recently?"

"Oh," Paul says. "You talked to Dad first." He pauses. "Look, you've got to understand--he's not a bad man. He just, when Mum died--he didn't cope well. He wanted Sam to come with us, and when she said no, he took it badly. Sam. Jesus."

"I see," Lewis says. "We'll be wanting copies of these notes."

"Of course," Paul says.

"There'll be a PC in touch," Lewis says. "Thank you for your time."

After Lewis hangs up, they look at each other. "There is no research fellowship," James says.

"Too right," Lewis says. "So who's been telling him lies?"

 

The emails come in not half an hour later, neatly ordered and printed by PC Lockhart. Lewis watches while James reads them. He knows within a sentence that it's Sam.

"It's her," he says to Lewis. "I'm sure of it."

"Thank God," Lewis says. "Something to be getting on with."

They split the emails between them, and read bits and pieces aloud, anything that might be important. It's funny to hear Sam's voice in Lewis's accent. Good to hear it at all--like a piece of her coming off the page. 

"'Dear Paul,'" Lewis reads, "'I knew there was something you weren't telling me, you twat.' She's a bit frank, eh?"

"Always was," James says.

"Then there's a bit about his girlfriend, and then here: 'Still not much on the Big Project--F is afraid we'll run right up to the wire on this one. But we've had everyone in to have a look at it, and they're all stumped too so that's some comfort at least.'"

"I've got the next one," James says, "she tells him she's in the lab until all hours every night. But it's all coded, vague--no details."

"It's to do with some language or other, surely?" Lewis says. "But what does she mean by 'up to the wire?' Can it be that urgent?"

"If the funding was running dry, yes," James says. "Or--there are prizes for this sort of thing sometimes. But it doesn't make any sense. How could she get funding or claim prize money without an identity?"

"False name? Starting fresh?" Lewis asks. "People do it all the time."

"Yes, but not academics," James says. "Palaeography is a small field. Even if she managed to bluff her way into a post, she'd be shot the first time someone from Chicago turned up for a conference and recognized her. Wouldn't work."

"Then it's all smoke," Lewis says, rubbing his forehead. "To keep the brother from asking questions. But then--why be in touch at all? Father disowns her, mother's dead, who'd blame her for staying away?"

"I don't know," James says. His stomach growls and he needs to smoke, has needed to smoke since they started in on the emails but hasn't wanted to stand up and walk away. 

"James?" Lewis says. 

"Hang on," James says. There's a long, blank pause. Then Lewis nods and gets up from the desk.

"I need some air," Lewis says. "Come on, then."

He follows Lewis down the stairs and out the front doors to the step.

"Go on," Lewis says, so James lights a cigarette. It's dark, drizzling rain, and the carpark is more than half empty. It's--he's--

"We're done for today," Lewis says. "Go home, eat something. You all right to drive?"

"Yes," James says. It's not far. Lewis looks at him, and James cuts his eyes away. Hasn't looked Lewis in the eye in hours. 

"Hm," Lewis says. He feels like a child, being deliberated over. "You know what," Lewis says. "Sandwich shop's still open. Come and eat with me."

"I don't," James says, but Lewis raises a hand and cuts him off.

"Be doing me a favor," Lewis says. "Need a change from ready meals, me."

 

Lewis gets turkey with cheddar, mustard, and chutney, and remembers James's usual: salami and pickled peppers. Lewis throws his jacket over an empty table while they stand in line, and then has to go back and get his wallet out of it in order to pay.

"I've got it," he says, and hands over a credit card.

James picks at his sandwich. It's not bad, but the peppers are bland and sour, the bread mediocre. It tastes like he's burned his tongue, or been to the dentist--texture but no flavor. Across the table, Lewis is eating with enthusiasm. He has mustard in the corner of his mouth. James swallows a lump of dry bread.

"Cheer up, then," Lewis says, and dabs at the mustard with his napkin. "That's a free dinner you've got there. Enjoy it."

"I am," James says, and takes another bite. He feels--something. 

"What is it, lad?" Lewis asks, putting his sandwich down.

"I don't know."

"Is this about Sam?" Lewis asks. He looks about a second away from reaching out and touching James--the wrong kind of touch, a friendly squeeze of the shoulder, a fatherly pat on the hand.

"None of your business," James gets out.

"Hush," Lewis says. "That's cack and you know it."

James wants to throw his sandwich across the shop like a child having a tantrum. Instead, he takes a very small bite and chews it savagely.

"All right," Lewis says softly. "All right."

"We weren't close," James says. "I don't know why I'm--"

Lewis shrugs. "It's always hard when you knew them," he says. "And none of 'em are easy to start with."

"I don't know if I can go on like this," James says. 

"Tell you a secret, lad," Robbie says. "Me neither."

 

When James opens the front door of his flat in the morning, Lewis is there. It's quarter past six, and he almost thinks he's dreaming, the kind of ordinary dream that feels boring even while it's happening. He might still be drunk--it's hard to tell.

"Get dressed," Lewis says. "We're going to see the Howshams."

 

They drive into London. Lewis gives James about ten minutes of silence before he looks over and says, "Hard night?"

"Yeah," James says. A bottle of wine and partway into a second before he could sleep, and still he'd woken up sweating and cold. Sometime in the middle of the first bottle he'd started a letter to Sam, in half-forgotten, awkward Greek: οὐκ ἀναγνώσεις ἐπιστολήν, ἀλλά γράφω αὐτήν ὅμως. You won't read this letter, but I am writing it anyway. 

"If you'd rather not," Lewis starts, and then falls silent. 

"You mean Tom?" James asks.

Lewis nods. 

"He's not--" James says, and then tries again. "I won't--it was fifteen years ago, Robbie. Nothing happened."

"Fine," Lewis says, and shakes his head. "I won't say a word."

 

Tom and Caroline are sat together on the couch in Caroline's office, shoulders touching. There's a tray of pastries in front of them, and a press pot of coffee, still full. The two of them are as alike as he remembers: strawberry blonde, with round, warm faces. Strange to see them on the far side of thirty.

"Inspector," Caroline says, and stands. Then she sees James. "My God," she says, "it can't be James Hathaway--but you knew Sam, of course."

James clears his throat. "DS Hathaway now," he says.

"Oh," she says, and raises her eyebrows. "Well. I always thought you'd run off and joined the church."

"I did," James says. "It didn't take."

"Hold on," Tom says. "James?" He stands. His tie is loose at his neck.

"Yes," James says. "Hello."

"If the reunion is over," Lewis says, "perhaps we could all sit down and have a little chat, eh?"

"Of course," Tom says. "What do you need to know?"

"You saw Samantha Freeman here in London eighteen months ago, is that correct?"

Tom looks down and rubs his hands together. "Yes," he says. "Yes. On the street, you know--I waved, I don't know if she saw. Her hair was different, she'd cut it sort of angled, longer on one side, and it was black. But it was her."

Caroline puts her hands on her face and starts to cry. Her fingernails are neon pink.

"I even called Caroline," Tom says, "and asked if she'd heard from Sam, because last I knew she was working in the States. And she said no. Look, I don't know if this makes a difference, but there was a man with her. When I saw her."

"Yes," Lewis says. "that could make a very big difference."

"I don't remember what he looked like. But he had her, you know--by the wrist, I think. Do you think he could have killed her?" 

"We don't know," Lewis says.

"James," Tom says, and looks him dead in the eye. "Did you know where she was? Only she used to talk about you all the time, and when I heard what had happened to her, I thought right away, someone ought to tell James Hathaway."

"I found her," James says, and looks down. The sunlight coming through the floor-to-ceiling window is so bright, he feels like he's floating out of his skin. Lewis shifts in the chair next to him.

"Oh, James," Caroline says, and sniffles. "That's awful."

"It's my job," James says. When he looks up, Lewis is looking at him. 

"Mr. Howsham," Lewis says. "Ms. Howsham. Thank you for your help. We'll be in touch if we need anything more."

When James stands up to go, Caroline hugs him around the neck. She's much gentler than he remembers, less brittle. She says something kind. Tom reaches out to shake his hand, and James remembers a party, very silly and intellectual, six or eight of them sitting around a coffee table with plates of curry and glasses of wine, and Tom giggling drunkenly in the corner with a West Ham scarf tied around his head as a joke.

"Take care of yourself, James," he says now, clasping both of his hands around James's one. He's so--forthright, James thinks--so unafraid, so ruddy and upper-class and terribly sincere.

"I will," James says. On the way out, he looks back through the glass walls of the office and sees the two of them sitting again, talking closely. Caroline takes off one of her earrings and holds it in her lap. Then he passes out of sight.

In the elevator, Lewis puts his hand on James's shoulder. "You look like a man who needs a coffee," he says. 

"Desperately," James says.

"We've one more person to see," Lewis says. "We'll stop on the way."

 

Lewis pulls over just off Russell Square, in front of a cafe, and drives off to park the car while James goes in and buys the biggest latte they offer. He's just taking the first sip when Lewis sticks his head in the door and waves.

"Come on," he says. "Might as well walk from here."

They walk in silence. The square smells of flowers and auto exhaust. There's a school group, maybe a photography club, taking pictures of the gardens and the buildings and each other. Lewis doesn't say a word, except "come on" at a traffic light, or "this way" when they turn and walk up into the shadow of Senate House. 

They take the elevator up to the fourth floor, into the libraries. It brings him back, the high ceilings and the carts loaded down with books and the manuscripts under glass at each end of the reading rooms. The quiet, rapt students--himself at nineteen or twenty, alone at a table piled down with books.

"Oxford Police," Lewis says, flashing his badge to the student worker at the front desk. "I'd like to speak with Anna Kashif."

Dr. Kashif is expecting them. "Welcome to Historic Collections," she says, standing up from her desk, and offers her hand to Lewis, then James. She has a strong handshake, a salt-and-pepper bun, and an undisguised hooked nose. "Thank you for coming all this way."

"Of course," Lewis says.

"I knew Samantha," she says, and motions for them to sit down across from her. "Knew of her, I suppose--we only met once, but I was following her work on the Voynich manuscript. She was working on a statistical analysis to decipher the script--at the time there was a lot of interest in the Sino-Tibetan connection, and she was one of the only people doing the actual legwork instead of just speculating."

James raises his eyebrows. "She was studying the Voynich manuscript?"

"Not officially," Dr. Kashif says. "I don't think she ever published anything. This was six or seven years ago, I think. I was at Yale on a one-year appointment in Rare Books, and she came in one day and asked to see the Voynich, and we struck up a conversation about it. She was tall, and she had brown hair then, in a braid down her back."

"Sounds like her," James says.

"I wouldn't have even remembered," Dr. Kashif says, "only I saw her again last year. About eight months ago. She had dyed her hair, and she was wearing a lot of makeup, but it was obviously her. She was here, in Medieval Manuscripts, looking at the Holcot collection."

"Did you speak to her?" Lewis asks. 

"Yes--I walked past and saw her, and then I stopped and said hello--I think I said, 'Sam, is that you?'--and she turned and walked right out into the hall. I almost thought I was wrong and it wasn't her, but then why run out like that? So I went after her, but she was gone. Inspector, we keep a logbook in the special collections--you can't get in without showing some kind of identification."

"So whatever name she was using--" Lewis starts.

"--will be in the system," Dr. Kashif says. "Yes."

It takes over an hour to find her; they take over the computer at the front desk and comb through every visitor for the two-week period Dr. Kashif gives them. Half the names they can rule out because Kashif knows them; another quarter are in the university database; Lewis puts the rest down as possible leads, but the list is still dauntingly long. They're into Thursday of the second week when James scrolls down the page and sees her.

"Alice Kober," he says, and then laughs. "There she is."

"You think that's her?" Lewis asks.

"Alice Kober," James says again. Lewis clearly doesn't get it. "She deciphered Linear B," he says. "She had a database--all handwritten punch cards. She was almost there, and then she died, and another scholar got all the credit. A man. Robbie, it has to be Sam."

Lewis looks at him with glowing, obvious pride. "Would you look at that," he says. "She had a mind like yours, I suppose."

"Hang on," James says. "How do I do a search on this thing?"

"Like this," Dr. Kashif says, and shows him. It comes up immediately and he is suddenly, viscerally pleased.

"Michael Ventris," he says. "The man that got the credit."

"Accomplice?" Lewis asks, raising his eyebrows.

"He came in the same day as Sam," James says, checking the listing. "A couple of hours before. But why not come in together? What were they doing?"

"Let's find out," Dr. Kashif says, and takes them to see the security footage.

 

"We don't get much theft," the head security officer says, while he cues up the video. "Some vandalism. Just students, mostly."

"The market for twelfth-century legal texts is vanishingly small," Dr. Kashif says wryly, "and the flashier pieces, the illuminated manuscripts and Shakespeare folios, are too high-profile to sell."

"What if you didn't want to sell it?" Lewis says. On one screen, Sam walks up the hall, body language casual but eyes flicking up and to the left, then the right, checking for security cameras. On another, she leans over a glass case, blocking the camera's view with her body, though James can just see her right hand feeling along the side of the case, tracing the join.

"You mean, what if you stole it and just--kept it?" Dr. Kashif says. "Burglar and collector, all in one?"

"She loved vellum and ink," James says, softly, watching Sam put her hands against the glass case. "Not as elegant as a scroll, but more physical. She liked that an animal had to die to make the book. It meant that what you wrote mattered."

"Did you know her?" Dr. Kashif asks.

"Pen friends," Lewis says in explanation.

"Show me the video for this room, starting at two-fifteen the same day," James says. "I want to see who else is looking at the same case."

"If it helps," Dr. Kashif says, "that's a fourteenth century French Book of Hours. It's nothing unique--we have four or five others from the same period. I would have heard if it had gone missing."

"You recognized her," Lewis says. "Perhaps they called it off?"

The security officer fast forwards the tape until a figure appears in front of the manuscript: a short man in a sports jacket and chinos, perhaps thirty-five. He stands turned away from the camera, so they can't see his face, but there is a brief moment when a student brushes past, arms full of books, and he's forced to turn. He glances toward the camera like a nervous actor.

"Stop there," Lewis says. The screen freezes on the man's face, turned at a three-quarter angle but fully visible. "That," Lewis says, "looks like a person of interest."

 

They find him right away: he's dead. 

"So he's some kind of art thief?" the London DI asks, as she drives the two of them from her office to the morgue. "Huh. We were following the domestic angle. Time of death is about four hours after your stiff, give or take, so he must have gone straight from one to the other."

"Assuming it's the same killer," Lewis says.

"Tell you what," DI Lovett says, "you tell me."

The body is clearly the same man from the security camera footage; it's no wonder Lovett recognized the screenshot they sent around. James turns away while the pathologist compares the bruising around the neck to photographs of Sam's body. It's not squeamishness; he just doesn't want to see her like that.

"No ID on the body," Lovett is saying, "but the apartment was rented to a Michael Ventris?"

"False name," Lewis says. "It's some linguist or other. Ask me sergeant, that's his department."

"Just a typical Oxford homicide, eh?" she says. She has a deep laugh.

"Oh, more than you know," Lewis says.

"See, we thought it was the flatmate," Lovett says. "Fellow called Chadwick--but the job was so professional it didn't fit. No DNA evidence, no signs of a struggle."

"Wait," James says. "Chadwick?"

"Yes," Lovett says. "John Chadwick. Works in IT."

"Bring him in," James says.

 

Chadwick's real name is Freddie Ballard. They round him up in Aberdeen, trying to board a flight to Algeria under the name Titus Murray. James watches him through the one-way mirror in the interrogation room; he sits very still, with his hands folded in his lap and his head bowed over the table. Lewis steps in and sits down, face like a disappointed father.

"My sergeant tells me," Lewis says, "that your aliases have some kind of significance. Is that true?"

"The girl chose them," Ballard says. His voice is rough and scratchy; James thinks about what it would be like to put hands around his neck and strangle him.

"What girl?" Lewis asks. Ballard looks at him like he's stupid.

"Sam Freeman," he says. "She raised the cash, brought me in."

"You're a securities expert, eh?" Lewis says.

"No comment," Ballard says shortly.

"Mr. Ballard, this will go better for you're cooperative. You are being held in connection with two premeditated homicides, and let me tell you I am treating this one as cut and dry. A little art theft is hardly going to add to your sentence."

Ballard sighs. "She was obsessed with the book," he says. "The Voynich manuscript. She thought she'd figured it out. So did Ian, for that matter. They sounded crazy, when they talked about it."

"Figured it out?" Lewis asks.

"There was a message in the brushstrokes," Ballard says. "That's what she said. She talked a bunch of shit about it. Break in, steal the manuscript, then they could have it up close and be the only ones to complete the message. I said, yeah, sure, let's work our way up to it, right? So we did a couple of jobs like that."

Ballard leans across the table a little, enough that James almost puts his hand against the glass, as if that will keep Lewis safe. But Ballard just keeps talking.

"They were getting sloppy," he says. "They didn't want to sell the things. They weren't telling me anything, it was all need to know, and then I come to the Bodleian with Sam to case out one of the Magna Cartas and she tells me they don't need me anymore."

"They were cutting you out," Lewis says calmly.

"It wasn't business anymore," Ballard says. "It was obsession." He sits back in his chair. "They were going after it on their own."

"But why kill them?" Lewis asks.

Ballard shrugs. "Her--I didn't like. And then afterward, he was the only one would have missed her."

"Well," Lewis says, bitterly pleased, "you were wrong about that."

 

Robbie comes to Sam's funeral and stands next to James, shoulders touching, while they carry her out of the church. Her brother is there, a well-tanned younger version of her, and Dr. Kashif, standing alone in the back. Tom and Caroline are not.

Lewis drives him home, afterwards, and comes inside with him and sits beside him on the couch watching Canadian curling on one of the sports channels. It's strangely mesmerizing. They order in a curry. James wonders if other people feel this way about their bosses, and suspects they don't.

"When you leave," James says. "Where will you go?"

"Nowhere," Lewis says, and sips at his stout. "Up to Manchester, to visit, but I'm settled here. You won't get rid of me that easily."

"I meant it," James says. "The other day. I can't do this much longer."

Lewis puts a hand on his arm. "When you go," he says, "I go."

"Good," James says, and looks down into his beer, and smiles.


End file.
